Page 120 of Slapshot Baby

Then the image fractures like a puck deflecting off a post, dissolving into a darkness I can't follow no matter how hard I reach.

I open my eyes.

I’m in Ava’s bedroom.

She’s pressed against my chest, her breathing deep and slow, her hand still resting over mine on her stomach. Her hair spills across the pillow.

My pulse is hammering. My shirt is damp at the collar.

I lie still, breathing through it, waiting for the dream to release its grip.

But I can still feel the ridge of her knuckles between my fingers, her hips beneath mine. I can hear my own voice saying words I've never said to her while awake.

I press my face into her hair, breathe in citrus and sleep warmth. She murmurs something I can't catch and burrows closer.

I close my eyes.

It takes a long time to fall back asleep. And when I do, the dream doesn't return.

But it comes back some nights later.

It’s the same mattress in my penthouse. It happens the same way with our eyes open and our fingers locked.

Except now there's more.

Her nails score down my chest. Her laugh breaks into a gasp when I change the angle. There’s also a torn condom on the nightstand this time, and there's a glass of water beside it that catches the ambient light from the city through the bedroom window.

I sit up in bed in the middle of the night and write it down.

It comes again four nights later. Then twice the following week.

The detail sharpens each time. My hand finding the side of her face with a tender touch. The whole sequence where I’m in her and can see every expression on her face, even the ones she tries to hide.

The mornings after are the worst. I lie in whatever bed I'm in, mine or hers, staring at the ceiling until daybreak.

I miss easy passes at morning practice. I overshoot a shot so badly that Wyatt skates a wide circle around the puck in the corner and looks back at me with a raised eyebrow.

Easton notices too. He skates beside me during a transition drill, his eyes moving over my face.

"You're dragging. How's your sleep?"

"I'm managing."

He lets it go but starts watching me more during the private drills.

It's not the lack of sleep that eats at me more. It's the consistency and sameness of the dream.

Dreams shift. They wander, collapse, rearrange themselves into nonsense.

Mine plays back like a recording. Same room, same woman, same words every single time.

I lie in the dark one night after the latest one, Ava asleep beside me. For the first time, I let myself think the thought I've been pushing back.

What if it's not a dream?

I shut it down. My memories came back, Dr. Harold confirmed it. If this were a real memory, it would have surfaced with everything else.

But the thought persists. By the following week, I pick up the phone and call Dr. Carla. She's the team's sports psychologist. Her office is on the third floor of the facility, wedged between the nutritionist and the video room.